I’ve
ridden an elephant, swallowed
fried grasshoppers, lived
on a commune, flown a hangglider (and crashed), picked coffee beans and
fed
them to a monkey, peered into a live volcano, watched my toddler soar
around a
big top in the arms of a Mexican trapeze artist dressed as Spiderman,
swum through
a pitch-black cave to a tiny and perfect hidden beach, milked goats,
skied in
the Alps (and crashed), hiked up a
glacier and alarmed
a moose, torn down a barn, gone to a “sit-up” (a Jamaican wake), hung
out with Cambodian
monks, pedaled
across the Blue Ridge Mountains in a homemade superhero cape, driven a
hundred-year-old car (and DIDN'T crash!), woven
lots of hammocks,
snaked a drain, gazed upon TheGarden of
Earthly Delights, and danced
till
dawn. Mostly, though, I spend a lot of time at the computer. In pajamas.

What I can do:

Say,
“Where’s the
bathroom, please?” in Thai

Balance
in
half
moon pose (usually)

Whip
up a
mean
moussaka

What I can’t do:

Turn a
cartwheel

Juggle

Draw a
cow

Official-sounding
bio

Mara
Rockliff is the author of many lively historical books for children, including Around America to Win the Vote: Two Suffragists, a Kitten, and 10,000 Miles and Anything but Ordinary Addie: The True Story of Adelaide Herrmann, Queen of Magic, as well as Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin
Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of France, winner of the Cook Prize and an Orbis Pictus Honor book.

Previous picture books include Gingerbread for Liberty!, The
Grudge Keeper,Chik Chak Shabbat and Me
and Momma and Big John, winner of the Golden Kite Award.
Under the pen name Lewis B. Montgomery, she wrote all twelve books in
the popular Milo & Jazz
Mysteries chapter book series. Rockliff is also the author of Get Real: What Kind of World Are
You Buying?, a tween-friendly guide to the social and
environmental impact of our shopping choices,which has become
required reading in middle schools across the United States and around
the world.

Rockliff's
public speaking experience includes TV and radio
as well as bookstores, libraries, schools, children's museums, writing
workshops, book festivals, and state and regional conferences for
teachers and
librarians. She lives in eastern Pennsylvania with her family. Visit
her online at mararockliff.com.